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SELI-CULTIVATIOr 


ENGLISH 


PALMER 


807.1-16 


u.  c. 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


'  1st  date  stamped   h-^lo' 


SELF-CULTIVATION 


ENGLISH 


BY 


GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER,  LL.D. 

ALFORD   PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY   IN 
HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


'4-4  2^4 

TWELFTH    THOUSAND 


NEW  YORK 
THOMAS  Y.   CROWELL  &  COMPANY 

^nH    1906 


Copyright,  1897, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Ckowell  &  Company. 


C.  1.  Pbtkbs  h  Son,  Ttpooba.pbebs, 

BUBTON. 


THE  FOLLOWING  PAPER 

IS   A 

COMMENCEMENT    ADDRESS 

DEUYBBES  AT   THE 

UNIVERSITY   OF  MICHIGAN. 

G.  H.  P, 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH. 


English  study  has  four  aims :  the  mastery  of  our 
language  as  a  science,  as  a  history,  as  a  joy,  and  as 
a  tool.  I  am  concerned  with  but  one,  the  mastery  of 
it  as  a  tool.  Philology  and  grammar  present  it  as  a 
science ;  the  one  attempting  to  follow  its  words,  the 
other  its  sentences,  through  all  the  intricacies  of  their 
growth,  and  so  to  manifest  laws  which  lie  hidden  in 
these  airy  products  no  less  than  in  the  moving  stars 
or  the  mja-iad  flowers  of  spring.  Fascinating  and  im- 
portant as  all  this  is,  I  do  not  recommend  it  here. 
For  I  want  to  call  attention  only  to  that  sort  of  Eng- 
lish study  which  can  be  carried  on  without  any  large 
apparatus  of  books.  For  a  reason  similar,  though 
less  cogent,  I  do  not  urge  historical  study.  Probably 
the  current  of  English  literature  is  more  attractive 
through  its  continuity  than  that  of  any  other  nation. 
Notable  works  in  verse  and  prose  have  appeared  in 
long  succession,  and  without  gaps  intervening,  in  a 
way  that  would  be  hard  to  parallel  in  any  other  lan- 
guage known  to  man.  A  bounteous  endowment  this 
for  every  English  speaker,  and  one  which  should  stim- 
ulate us  to  trace  the  marvellous  and  close-linked  prog- 
ress from  the  times  of  the  Saxons  to  those  of  Tennyson 
and  Kipling.     Literature,  too,  has  this  advantage  over 

5 


6  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

every  other  species  of  art  study,  that  everybody  can 
examine  the  original  masterpieces  and  not  depend  on 
reproductions,  as  in  the  cases  of  painting,  sculpture, 
and  architecture ;  or  on  intermediate  interpretation,  as 
in  the  ease  of  music.  To-day  most  of  these  master- 
pieces can  be  bought  for  a  trifle,  and  even  a  poor  man 
can  follow  through  centuries  the  thoughts  of  his  an- 
cestors. But  even  so,  ready  of  access  as  it  is,  English 
can  be  studied  as  a  history  only  at  the  cost  of  solid 
time  and  continuous  attention,  much  more  time  than 
the  majority  of  those  I  am  addressing  can  afford. 
By  most  of  us  our  mighty  literature  cannot  be  taken 
in  its  continuous  current,  the  later  stretches  proving 
interesting  through  relation  with  the  earlier.  It  must 
be  taken  fragmentarily,  if  at  all,  the  attention  delay- 
ing on  those  parts  only  which  offer  the  greatest  beauty 
or  promise  the  best  exhilaration.  In  other  words, 
•English  may  be  possible  as  a  joy  where  it  is  not  pos- 
sible as  a  history.  In  the  endless  wealth  which  our 
poetry,  story,  essay,  and  drama  afford,  every  disposi- 
tion may  find  its  appropriate  nutriment,  correction, 
or  solace.  %He  is  unwise,  however  busy,  who  does  not 
have  his  loved  authors,  veritable  friends  with  whom 
he  takes  refuge  in  the  intervals  of  work,  and  by  whose 
intimacy  he  enlarges,  refines,  sweetens,  and  emboldens 
his  own  limited  existence.  Yet  the  fact  that  English 
as  a  joy  must  largely  be  conditioned  by  individual 
taste  prevents  me  from  offering  general  rules  for  its 
pursuit.  The  road  which  leads  one  man  straight  to 
tliis  joy  leads  another  to  tedium.  In  all  literary  en- 
joyment there  is  something  incalculable,  something 
waywaTd,  eluding  the  precision  of  rule,  and  rendering 
inexact  the  precepts  of  him  who  would  point  out  the 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  7 

path  to  it.     While   I  believe  that  many  suggestions 
may  be  made,  useful  to  the  young  enjoyer,  and  pro- 
motive of  his  wise  vagrancy,  I  shall  not  undertake 
here  the  complicated  task  of  offering  them.\   Let  en- 
joyment go,  let  history  go,  let  science  go,  and  still 
English  remains  —  English  as   a  tool.-/-  Every  hour\ 
our  language  is  an  engine  for  communicating  with 
others,  every  instant  for  fashioning  the  thoughts  of  I 
our  own  minds. -^  I  want  to  call  attention  to  the  means^ 
,of  mastering  this  curious  and  essential  tool,  and  to 
:lead  every  one  who  hears  me  to  become  discontented 
'with  his  employment  of  it. 

The  importance  of  literary  power  needs  no  long 
argument.  Everybody  acknowledges  it,  and  sees  that 
without  it  all  other  human  faculties  are  maimed. 
Shakespeare  says  that  "  Time  insults  o'er  dull  and 
speechless  tribes."  It  and  all  who  live  in  it  insult 
over  the  speechless  person.  So  mutually  dependent 
are  we  that  on  our  swift  and  full  communication  with 
one  another  is  staked  the  success  of  almost  every 
scheme  we  form.  JEIe  who  can  explain  himself  may 
command  what  he  wants.  -  He  who  cannot  is  left  to 
the  poverty  of  individual  resource  ;  for  men  do  what 
we  desire  only  when  persuaded.  The  persuasive  and 
explanatory  tongue  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  chief  lev- 
ers of  life.  Its  leverage  is  felt  within  us  as  well  as 
without,  for  expression  and  thought  are  integrally 
bound  together.  We  do  not  first  possess  completed 
thoughts,  and  then  express  them.  The  very  forma- 
tion of  the  outward  product  extends,  sharpens,  en- 
riches the  mind  which  produces,  so  that  he  who  gives 
forth  little,  after  a  time  is  likely  enough  to  discover 
that  he  has  little  to  give  forth.     By  expression,  too, 


8  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

we  may  carry  our  benefits  and  our  names  to  a  far  gen- 
eration. This  durable  character  of  fragile  language 
puts  a  wide  difference  of  worth  between  it  and  some 
of  the  other  great  objects  of  desire,* —  health,  wealth, 
and  beauty,  for  example.  These  are  notoriously  liable 
to  accident.  We  tremble  while  we  have  them.  But 
literary  power,  once  ours,  is  more  likely  than  any 
other  possession  to  be  ours  always.  It  perpetuates 
and  enlarges  itself  by  the  very  fact  of  its  existence, 
and  perishes  only  with  the  decay  of  the.  man  himself. 
For  this  reason,  because  more  than  health,  wealth, 
and  beauty,  literary  style  may  be  called  the  man,  good 
judges  have  found  in  it  the  final  test  of  culture,  and 
have  said  that  he,  and  he  alone,  is  a  well-educated  per- 
son who  uses  his  language  with  power  and  beauty. 
The  supreme  and  ultimate  product  of  civilization,  it 
has  well  been  said,  is  two  or  three  persons  talking 
together  in  a  room.  Between  ourselves  and  our  lan- 
guage there  accordingly  springs  up  an  association 
peculiarly  close.  We  are  as  sensitive  to  criticism 
of  our  speech  as  of  our  manners.  The  young  man 
looks  up  with  awe  to  him  who  has  written  a  book,  as 
already  half  divine ;  and  the  graceful  speaker  is  a 
universal  object  of  envy. 

But  the  very  fact  that  literary  endowment  is  im- 
mediately recognized  and  eagerly  envied  has  induced 
a  strange  illusion  in  regard  to  it.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  something  mysterious,  innate  in  him  who  pos- 
sesses it,  and  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  him  who  has  it 
not.  Tlie  very  contrary  is  the  fact.  No  human  em- 
ployment is  more  free  and  calcixlable  than  the  win- 
ning of  language.  Undoubtedly  there  are  natura'i 
aptitudes  for  it,  as  there  are  for  farming,  seaman- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  9 

ship,  or  being  a  good  husband.  But  nowhere  is 
straight  work  more  effective.  Persistence,  care,  dis- 
criminating observation,  ingenuity,  refusal  to  lose 
heart,  —  traits  which  in  every  "other  occupation  tend 
toward  excellence,  —  tend  toward  it  here  with  special 
security.  Whoever  goes  to  his  grave  with  bad  Eng- 
lish in  his  mouth  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself  for 
the  disagreeable  taste ;  for  if  faulty  speech  can  be  in- 
herited, it  can  be  exterminated  too.  I-Jiope  to  point 
put  some  of  the  methods  of  substituting  good  English 
ifoE  bad.  And  since  my  space  is  brief,  and  I  wish  to 
be  remembered,  I  throw  what  I  have  to  say  into  the 
form  of  fpiij:-sim.ple.jprecepts,  which,  if  pertinaciously 
obeyed,  will,  I  believe,  give  anybody  effective  mastery 
of  English  as,  a  tool^ 

First,  then,  ''\Look_weU  _to_j[our_s£eech."  It  is 
commonly  supposed  that  when  a  man  seeks  literary 
power  he  goes  to  his  room  and  plans  an  article  for 
the  press.  But  this  is  to  begin  literary  culture  at 
the  wrong  end.  We  speak  a  hundred  times  for  every 
once  we  write.  ^The  busiest  writer  produces  little 
more  than  a  volume  a  year,  not  so  much  as  his  talk 
would  amount  to  in  a  week.  Consequently  through 
speech  it  is  usually  decided  whether  a  man  is  to  have 
command  of  his  language  or  not.  If  he  is  slovenly  in 
his  ninety-nine  cases  of  talking,  he  can  seldom  pull 
himself  up  to  strength  and  exactitude  in  the  hun- 
dredth case  of  writing.  A  person  is  made  in  one 
piece,  and  the  same  being  runs  through  a  multitude 
of  performances.  Whether  words  are  uttered  on 
paper  or  to  the  air,  the  effect  on  the  utterer  is  the 
same.  Vigor  or  feebleness  results  according  as  energy 
or  slackness  has   been  in  command.     I  know  that 


10  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

certain  adaptations  to  a  new  field  are  often  necessary. 
A  good  speaker  may  find  awkwardnesses  in  himself 
when  he  comes  to  write,  a  good  writer  when  he 
speaks.  And  certainly  cases  occur  w^here  a  man  ex- 
hibits distinct  strength  in  one  of  the  two,  speaking 
or  writing,  and  not  in  the  other.  But  such  cases  are 
rare,  v^  As  a  rule,  language  once  within  our  control 
can  be  employed  for  oral  or  for  written  purposes. 
And  since  the  opportunities  for  oral  practice  enor- 
mously outbalance  those  for  written,  it  is  the  oral 
which  are  chiefly  significant  in  the  development  of 
literary  power.  4J\Ve  rightly  say  of  the  accomplished 
\    writer  that  he  shows  a  mastery  of  his  own  tongue. 

This  predominant  influence  of  speech  marks  nearly 
all  great  epochs  of  literature.  The  Homeric  poems 
are  addressed  to  the  ear,  not  to  the  eye.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  Homer  knew  writing,  certain  that  he  knew 
profoundly  every  quality  of  the  tongue,  —  veracity, 
vividness,  shortness  of  sentence,  simplicity  of  thought, 
obligation  to  insure  swift  apprehension.  Writing  and 
rigidity  are  apt  to  go  together.  In  these  smooth-slip- 
ping verses  one  catches  everywhere  the  voice.  So, 
too,  the  aphorisms  of  Hesiod  might  naturally  pass 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  stories  of  Herodotus 
be  told  by  an  old  man  at  the  fireside.  Early  Greek  lit- 
erature is  plastic  and  garrulous.  Its  distinctive  glory 
is  that  it  contains  no  literary  note ;  that  it"  gives  forth 
human  feeling  not  in  conventional  arrangement,  but 
with  apparent  spontaneity  —  in  short,  that  it  is  speech 
literature,  not  book  literature.  And  the  same  ten- 
dency continued  long  among  the  Greeks.  At  the  cul- 
mination of  their  power,  the  drama  was  their  chief 
literary  form,  —  the  drama,  which  is  but  speech  en- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  11\___ 

nobled,  cqnn^eifiil,  clarified.  Plato,  too,  following  the 
dramatic  precedent  and  the  precedent  of  his  talking 
master,  accepted  conversation  as  his  medium  for  phi- 
losophy, and  imparted  to  it  th.e  vivacity^  ease,  way- 
wardness even,  which  the  best  conversation  exhibits. 
Nor  was  the  experience  of  the  Greeks  peculiar.  Our 
literature  shows  a  similar  tendency.  Its  bookish  times 
are  its  decadent  times,  its  talking  times  its  glory. 
Chaucer,  like  Herodotus,  is  a  story-teller,  and  follows 
the  lead  of  those  who  on  the  Continent  entertained 
courtly  circles  with  pleasant  tales.  Shakespeare  and 
his  fellows  in  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
did  not  concern  themselves  with  publication.  Mars- 
ton,  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  thinks  it  necessary  to  apol- 
ogize for  putting  his  piece  in  print,  and  says  he 
would  not  have  done  such  a  thing  if  unscnipulous 
persons,  hearing  the  play  at  the  theatre,  had  not 
already  printed  corrupt  versions  of  it.  Even  the 
''Queen  Anne's  men,"  far  removed  though  they  are 
from  anything  dramatic,  still  shape  their  ideals  of  lit- 
erature by  demands  of  speech.  The  essays  of  the 
Spectator,  the  poems  of  Pope,  are  the  remarks  of  a 
cultivated  gentleman  at  an  evening  party.  /Here  is 
the  brevity,  the  good  taste,  the  light  touch,  the 
neat  epigram,  the  avoid_ance  of  whatever  might  stir 
passion,  controversy,  or  laborious  thought,  which  char- 
acterize the  conversation  of  a  well-bred  man.  In- 
deed, it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  literature  can  be  long 
vital  which  is  based  on  the  thought  of  a  book  and 
not  on  that  of  living  utterance.  Unless  the  speech 
notion  is  uppermost,  words  will  not  ran  swiftly  to 
their  mark.  They  delay  in  delicate  phrasings  while 
naturalness  and  a  sense  of  reality  disappear.    Wornea, 


12  SELF-CULTIVATION  IW  ENGLISH. 


are  the  best  talkers.  I  sometimes  please  myself  with 
noticing  that  three  of  the  greatest  periods  of  English 
literature  coincide  with  the  reigns  of  the  three  Eng- 
lish queens. 

Fortunate  it  is,  then,  that  self-cultivation  in  the 
use  of  English  must  chiefly  come  through  speech ;  be- 
cause we  are  always  speaking,  whatever  else  we  do. 
In  opportunities  for  acquiring  a  mastery  of  language, 
the  poorest  and  busiest  are  at  no  large  disadvantage 
as  compared  with  the  leisured  rich.  It  is  true  the 
strong  impulse  which  comes  from  the  suggestion  and 
approval  of  society  may  in  some  cases  be  absent,  btit 
^his  can  be  compensated  by  the  sturdy  purpose  of  the 
,1  Jearner.     A  recognition  of  the  beauty  of  well-ordered 

'words,  a  strong  desire,  patience  underj»*fiiscourage- 
ments,  and  promptness  in  counting  every  occasion  as 
of  consequencft,  —  these  are  the  simple  ageuqi^s  which 

^  sweep  one  on  to  power.  Watch  your  speech,  then. 
That  is  all  which  is  needed.  Only  it  is  desirable  to 
know  what  qualities  of  speech  to  watch  for.  ^^  I  find 
three,  —  acciTracy,  audacity,  and  range,  —  and  I  will 
say  a  few  words  about  each. 

Obviously,  good  English  is  exact  English.  Our 
words  should  fit  our  thoughts  like  a  glove,  and  be 
neither  too  wide  nor  too  tight.  Jf  too  wide,  they  Avill 
include  much  vacuity  beside  the  intended  matter.  If 
too  tight,  they  will  check  the  strong  grasp.  Of  the 
two  dangei'fi'/lbbseness  is  by  far  the  greater.  There 
are  people  who  say  what  they  mean  with  such  a  naked 
precision  that  nobody  not  familiar  with  the  subject  can 
quickly  catch  the  sense.  George  Herbert  and  Emer- 
son strain  the  attention  of  many.  But  niggardly  and 
angular  speakers  are  rare.    Too  frequently  words  sig- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  13 

nify  nothing  in  particular.  They  are  merely  thrown 
out  in  a  certain  direction,  to  report  a  vague  and  unde- 
termined meaning  or  even  a  general  emotion.  The 
first  business  of  every  one  who  would  train  himself 
in  language  is  to  articulate  his  thought,  to.know  defi- 
nite_ly;_whatjb.e  wishes  to  say,  and  then  .to  J3ick_tlifi§_^ 
words  which  compel  tlie^iearer  to  think  of  this  and 
only  this.  For  such  a  purpose  two  words  are  often 
better  than  three.  'vThe  fewer  the  words,  the  more 
pungent  the  'impression.  ^Brevity  is  the  soul  not 
simply  of  a  jest,  but  of  wit  in  its  finest  sense  where 
it  is  identical  with  wisdom.  -^He  who  can  put  a  great 
deal  into  a  little  is  the  master.  Since  firm  texture  is 
what  is  wanted,  not  embroidery  or  superposed  orna- 
ment, beauty  has  been  well  defined  as  the  j)urgation  of 
superfluities.  And  certainly  many  a  paragraph  might 
have  its  beauty  brightened  by  letting  quiet  words 
take  the  place  of  its  loud  words,  omitting  its  "  verys," 
and  striking  out  its  purple  patches  of  "  fine  writ- 
ing." Here  is  Ben  Jonson's  description  of  Bacon's 
language :  "  There  happened  in  my  time  one  noble 
speaker  who  was  full  of  gravity  in  his  speech.  No 
man  ever  spoke  more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more 
weightily,  or  suifered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in 
what  he  uttered.  !N^  member  of  his  speech  but  con- 
sisted of  his  own  graces.  His  hearers  coidd  not  cough 
or  look  aside  without  loss.  He  commanded  when  he 
spoke,  and  had  his  judges  angry  or  pleased  at  his  dis- 
cretion." Such  are  the  men  who  command,  men  who 
speak  "  neatly  and  pressly."  But  to  gain  such  pre- 
cision is  toilsome  business.  While  we  are  in  training 
for  it,  no  word  must  unjDermittedly  pass  the  portal  of 
the  teeth.    Something  like  what  we  mean  must  never 


14  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

be  counted  equivalent  to  what  we  mean.  And  if  we 
are  not  sure  of  our  meaning  or  of  our  word,  we  must 
pause  until  we  are  sure.  Accuracy  does  not  come  of 
itself.  For  persons  who  can  use  several  languages, 
capital  practice  in  acquiring  it  can  be  had  by  trans- 
lating from  one  language  to  another  and  seeing  that 
the  entire  sense  is  carried  over.  Those  who  have 
only  their  native  speech  will  find  it  profitable  often 
to  attempt  definitions  of  the  common  words  they  use. 
-inaccuracy  will  not  stand  up  against  the  habit  of  defi- 
nition. Dante  boasted  that  no  rhythmic  exigency 
had  ever  made  him  say  what  he  did  not  mean.  We 
heedless  and  unintending  speakers,  under  no  exigency 
of  rhyme  or  reason,  say  what  we  mean  but  seldom 
and  still  more  seldom  mean  what  we  say.  To  hold 
our  thoughts  and  words  in  significant  adjustment  re- 
quires unceasing  consciousness,  a  perpetual  determi- 
nation not  to  tell  lies ;  for  of  course  every  inaccuracy 
is  a  bit  of  untruthfulness.  We  have  something  in 
mind,  yet  convey  something  else  to  our  hearer.  And 
no  moral  purpose  will  save  us  from  this  untruthful- 
ness unless  that  purpose  is  sufficient  to  inspire  the 
daily  drill  which  brings  the  power  to  be  true.  Again 
and  again  we  are  shut  up  to  evil  because  we  have  not 
acquired  the  ability  of  goodness. 

But  after  all,  I  hope  that  nobody  who  hears  me 
will  quite  agree.  There  is  something  enervating  in 
conscious  care.  Necessary  as  it  is  in  shaping  our  pur- 
poses, if  allowed  too  direct  and  exclusive  control  con- 
sciousness breeds  hesitation  and  feebleness.  Action 
is  not  excellent,  at  least,  until  spontaneous.  In  piano- 
playing  we  begin  by  picking  out  each  separate  note ; 
but  we  do  not  call  the  result  music  until  we  play  our 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN  ENGLISH.  15 

notes  by  the  handful,  heedless  how  each  is  formed. 
And  so  it  is  everywhere.  Consciously  selective  con- 
duct is  elementary  and  inferior.  People  distrust  it,  or 
rather  they  distrust  him  who  exhibits  it.  If  anybody 
talking  to  us  visibly  studies  his  words,  we  turn  away. 
What  he  says  may  be  well  enough  as  school  exercise, 
but  it  is  not  conversation.  "Accordingly,  if  we  would 
have  our  speech  forcible,  we  shall  need  to  put  into  it 
quite  as  much  of  audacity  as  we  do  of  precision,  terse- 
ness, or  simplicity.  Accuracy  alone  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  sought,  but  accuracy  and  dash.  Of  Patrick  Henry, 
the  orator  who  more  than  any  other  could  craze  our 
Revolutionary  fathers,  it  was  said  that  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  throw  himself  headjong  into  the  middle  of 
a  sentence,  trusting  to_Gpd,  Aimighly-to  get  him  out. 
So  must  we  speak.  We  must  not,  before  beginning  a 
entence,  decide  what  the  end  shall  be ;  for  if  we  do, 
[nobody  will  care  to  hear  that  end.  At  the  beginning, 
it  is  the  beginning  which  claims  the  attention  of  both 
speaker  and  listener,  and  trepidation  about  going  on 
will  mar  all.  We  must  give  our  thought  its  head, 
and  not  drive  it  with  too  tight  a  rein,  nor  grow  timid 
when  it  begins  to  prance  a  bit.  Of  course  we  must 
retain  coolness  in  courage,  applying  the  results  of  our 
previous  discipline  in  accuracy ;  but  we  need  not  move 
so  slowly  as  to  become  formal.  Pedantry  is  worse 
than  blimdering.  If  we  care  for  grace  and  flexible 
beauty  of  language,  we  must  learn  to  let  our  thought 
run.  Would  it,  then,  be  too  much  of  an  Irish  bull  to 
say  that  in  acquiring  English  we  need  to  cultivate 
spontaneity  ?  The  uncultivated  kind  is  not  worth 
much ;  it  is  wild  and  haphazard  stuff,  unadjusted  to 
its  uses.     On  the  other  hand,  no  speech  is  of  much 


16  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

account,  however  just,  which  lacks  the  element  of 
courage.  Accuracy  and  dash,  then,  the  combination 
of  the  two,  must  be  our  difficult  aim ;  and  we  must 
not  rest  satisfied  so  long  as  either  dwells  with  us 
alone. 

But  are  the  two  so  hostile  as  they  at  first  appear  ? 
Or  can,  indeed,  the  first  be  obtained  Avithout  the  aid 
of  the  second  ?  Supposing  we  are  convinced  that 
words  possess  no  value  in  themselves,  and  are  correct 
or  incorrect  only  as  they  truly  report  experience,  we 
shall  feel  ourselves  impelled  in  the  mere  interest  of 
accuracy  to  choose  them  freshly,  and  to  put  them  to- 
gether in  ways  in  which  they  never  co-operated  before, 
so  as  to  set  forth  with  distinctness  that  which  just 
we,  not  other  people,  have  seen  or  felt.  The  reason 
why  we  do  not  naturally  have  this  daring  exacti- 
tude is  probably  twofold.  We  let  our  experiences  be 
blurred,  not  observing  sharply,  nor  knowing  with  any 
minuteness  what  we  are  thinking  about ;  and  so  there 
is  no  individuality  in  our  language.  And  then,  be- 
sides, we  are  terrorized  by  custom,  and  inclined  to 
adjust  what  we  would  say  to  what  others  have  said 
before.  The  cure  for  the  first  of  these  troubles  is  to 
keep  our  eye  on  our  object,  instead  of  on  our  listener 
or  ourselves  ;  and  for  the  second,  to  learn  to  rate  the 
expressiveness  of  language  more  highly  than  its  cor- 
rectness. The  opposite  of  this,  the  disposition  to 
set  correctness  above  expressiveness,  produces  that 
peculiarly  vulgar  diction  known  as  "  school-ma'am 
English,"  in  which  for  the  sake  of  a  dull  accord  with 
usage  all  the  picturesque,  imaginative,  and  forceful 
employment  of  words  is  sacrificed.  Of  course  we 
must  use  words  so  that  people  can  understand  them, 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN   ENGLISH.  17 

and  understand  them,  too,  with  ease;  but  this  once 
granted,  let  our  language  be  our  own,  obedient  to  our 
special  needs.  "  Whenever,"  says  Thomas  Jefferson, 
"  by  small  grammatical  negligences  tlj.e  energy  of  an 
idea  can  be  condensed,  or  a  word  be  made  to  stand 
for  a  sentence,  I  hold  grammatical  rigor  in  contempt." 
"  Young  man,"  said  Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  one  who 
was  pointing  out  grammatical  errors  in  a  sermon  of 
his,  "  when  the  English  language  gets  in  my  way,  it 
doesn't  stand  a  chance."  'No  man  can  be  convincing, 
writer  or  speaker,  who  is  afraid  to  send  his  words 
wherever  they  may  best  follow  his  meaning,  and  this 
with  but  little  regard  to  whether  any,  other  person's 
words  have  ever  been  there  before.  In  assessing 
merit,  let  us  not  stupefy  ourselves  witH  using  nega- 
tive standards.  -^What  stamps  a  man  as  great  is  not 
freedom  from  faults,  but  abundance  of  powers. 
;^  Such  audacious  accuracy,  however, -distinguishing 
as  it  does  noble  speech  from  commonplace  speech, 
can  be  practised  only  by  him  who  has  a  wide  range 
of  words.  Our  ordinary  range  is  absurdly  narro^v. 
It  is  important,  therefore,  for  anybody  Avho  would 
cultivate  himself  in  English  to  make  strenuous  and 
systematic  eiforts  to  enlarge  his  vocabulary.  Our 
dictionaries  contain  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
words.  The  average  speaker  employs  about  three 
thousand.  Is  this  because  ordinary  people  have  only 
three  or  four  thousand  things  to  say  ?  Xot  at  all. 
It  is  simply  due  to  dulness.  Listen  to  the  average 
school-boy.  He  has  a  dozen  or  two  nouns,  half  a 
dozen  verbs,  three  or  four  adjectives,  and  enough 
conjunctions  and  jirepositions  to  stick  the  conglom- 
erate together.     This  ordinary  speech  deserves  the 


18  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

description  which  Hobbes  gave  to  his  State  of  Na- 
ture, that  "it  is  solitary,  poor,  na§ty,  brutish,  and 
short."  The  fact  is,  we  fall  into  the  way 'of  think- 
ing that  the  wealthy  words  are  for  others  and  that 
they  do  not  belong  to  us.  We  are  like  those  who 
have  received  a  vast  inheritance,  but  who  persist  in 
the  inconveniences  of  hard  beds,  scanty  food,  rude 
clothing,  who  never  travel,  and  who  limit  their  pur- 
chases to  the  bleak  necessities  of  life.  Ask  such 
people  why  they  endure  niggardly  living  while  wealth 
in  plenty  is  lying  in  the  bank,  and  they  can  only  an- 
swer that  they  have  never  learned  how  to  spend.  But 
this  is  worth  learning.  Milton  used  eight  thousand 
words,  Shakespeare  fifteen  thousand.  We  have  all 
the  subjects  to  talk  about  that  these  early  speakers 
had ;  and  in  addition,  we  have  bicycles  and  sci- 
ences and  strikes  and  political  combinations  and  all 
the  complicated  living  of  the  modern  world. 

Why,  then,  do  we  hesitate  to  swell  our  words  to 
meet  our  needs  ?  It  is  a  nonsense  question.  There 
is  no  reason.  We  are  simply  lazy ;  too  lazy  to  make 
ourselves  comfortable.  We  let  our  vocabularies  be 
limited,  and  get  along  rawly  without  the  refinements 
of  human  intercourse,  without  refinements  in  our  own 
thoughts ;  for  thoughts  are  almost  as  dependent 
on  words  as  words  on  thoughts.  For  example,  all 
exasperations  we  lump  together  as  "aggravating," 
not  considering  whether  they  may  not  rather  be  dis- 
pleasing, annoying,  offensive,  disgusting,  irritating, 
or  even  maddening ;  and  without  observing,  too,  that 
in  our  reckless  usage  we  have  burned  up  a  word 
which  might  be  convenient  when  we  should  need  to 
mark  some  shading  of  the  word  "increase."     Like 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  19 

the  bad  cook,  we  seize  the  frying-pan  whenever  we 
need  to  fry,  broil,  roast,  or  stew,  and  then  we  won- 
der why  all  our  dishes  taste  alike  while  in  the  next 
house  the  food  is  appetizing.  It  is  all  unnecessary. 
Enlarge  the  vocabulary.  Let  any  one  who  wants  to 
see  himself  grow,  resolve  to  adopt  two  new  words 
each  week.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the  endless 
and  enchanting  variety  of  the  world  will  begin  to  re- 
flect itself  in  his  speech,  and  in  his  mind  as  well.  I 
know  that  when  we  use  a  word  for  the  first  time  we 
are  startled,  as  if  a  fire-cracker  went  off  in  our  neigh- 
borhood. We  look  about  hastily  to  see  if  any  one 
has  noticed.  But  finding  that  no  one  has,  we  may  be 
emboldened.  A  word  used  three  times  slips  off  the 
tongue  Avith  entire  naturalness,  then  it  is  ours  for- 
ever, and  with  it  some  phase  of  life  which  had  been 
lacking  hitherto,  ^or  each  word  presents  its  own 
point  of  view,  discloses  a  special  aspect  of  things,  re- 
ports some  little  importance  not  otherwise  conveyed, 
and  so  contributes  its  small  emancipation  to  our  tied- 
up  minds  and  tongues. 

But  a  brief  warning  may  be  necessary  to  make  my 
meaning  clear.  In  urging  the  addition  of  new  words 
to  our  present  poverty-stricken  stock,  I  am  far  from 
suggesting  that  we  should  seek  out  strange,  technical, 
or  inflated  expressions,  which  do  not  appear  in  or- 
dinary conversation.  The  very  opposite  is  my  aim. 
I  would  put  every  man  who  is  now  employing  a  dic- 
tion merely  local  and  personal  in  command  of  the 
approved  resources  of  the  English  language. \^  Our 
poverty  usually  comes  through  provinciality,  through 
accepting  without  criticism  the  habits  of  our  special 
set.     My  family,  my  immediate  friends,  have  a  die- 


20  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

tion  of  their  own.  Plenty  of  other  words,  recognized 
as  sound,  are  known  to  be  current  in  books,  and  to  be 
employed  by  modest  and  intelligent  speakers,  only  we 
do  not  use  them.  Our  set  has  never  said  ''  diction," 
or  "  current,"  or  "  scope,"  or  ''  scanty,"  or  ''  hitherto," 
or  "  convey,"  or  "  lack."  Far  from  unusual  as  these 
words  are,  to  adopt  them  might  seem  to  set  me  apart 
from  those  whose  intellectual  habits  I  share.  From 
this  I  shrink.  I  do  not  like  to  wear  clothes  suitable 
enough  for  others,  but  not  in  the  style  of  my  own 
plain  circle.  Yet  if  each  one  of  that  circle  does  the 
same,  the  general  shabbiness  is  increased.  The  talk 
of  all  is  made  narrow  enough  to  fit  the  thinnest  there. 
What  we  should  seek  is  to  contribute  to  each  of  the 
little  companies  with  which  our  life  is  bound  up  a 
^ntly  enlarging  influence,  such  impulses  as  will  not 
startle  or  create  detachment,  but  which  may  save  from 
humdrum,  routine,  and  dreary  usualness.  We  cannot 
be  really  kind  without  being  a  little  venturesome. 
The  small  shocks  of  our  increasing  vocabulary  will  in 
all  probaliility  be  as  helpful  to  our  friends  as  to  our- 
selves. 

Such,  then,  are  the  excellences  of  speech.  If  we 
would  cultivate  ourselves  in  the  use  of  English,  we 
must  make  our  daily  talk  accurate,  daring,  and  full. 
I  have  insisted  on  these  points  the  more  because  in 
my  judgment  all  literary  power,  especially  that  of 
busy  men,  is  rooted  in  sound  speech.  But  though  the 
roots  are  here,  the  growth  is  also  elsewhere.  And  I 
pass  to  my  later  precepts,  which,  if  the  earlier  one 
has  been  laid  well  to  heart,  will  require  only  brief 
discussion. 

Secondly,  ''Welcome  every   o])portunity  for  writ- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  21 

mgj'  Important  as  I  have  shown  speech  to  be,  there 
is  much  that  it  cannot  do.  Seldom  can  it  tea^h  struc- 
ture. Its  space  is  too  small.  Talking  moves  in  sen- 
tences, and  rarely  demands  a  paragraph.  I  make  my 
little  remark,  —  a  dozen  or  ttv^o  words,  • —  then  wait  for 
my  friend  to  hand  me  back  as  many  more.  This  gen- 
tle exchange  continues  by  the  hour;  but  either  of  us 
would  feel  himself  unmannerly  if  he  should  grasp  an 
entire  five  minutes  and  make  it  uninterruptedly  his. 
That  would  not  be  speaking,  but  rather"  speech-mak- 
ing. The  brief  groupings  of  words  which  make  up 
our  talk  furnish  capital  practice  in  precision,  boldness, 
and  variety ;  but  they  do  not  contain  room  enough  for 
exercising  our  constructive  faculties.  Considerable 
length  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  learn  how  to  set  forth 
B  in  right  relation  to  A  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  C  on 
the  other ;  and  while  keeping  each  a  distinct  part,  are 
to  be  able  through  their  smooth  progression  to  weld 
all  the  parts  together  into  a  compacted  whole.  Such 
wholeness  is  what  we  mean  by  literary  form.  Lack- 
ing it,  any  piece  of  writing  is  a  failure ;  because,  in 
truth,  it  is  not  a  piece,  but  pieces.  For  ease  of  read- 
ing, or  for  the  attainment  of  an  intended  effect,  unity 
is  essential  —  the  multitude  of  statements,  anecdotes, 
quotations,  arguings,  gay  sportings,  and  appeals,  all 
"bending  one  way  their  gracious  influence."  T^And 
this  dominant  unity  of  the  entire  piece  obliges  unity 
also  in  the  subordinate  parts.  Not  enough  has  been 
done  when  we  have  huddled  together  a  lot  of  wander- 
ing sentences,  and  penned  them  in  a  paragraph,  or 
even  when  we  have  linked  them  together  by  the 
frail  ties  of  "and,  and."  A  sentence  must  be  com- 
pelled to  say  a  single  thing;  a  paragraph,  a  single 


22  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

thing ;  an  essay,  a  single  thing.  Each  part  is  to  be  a 
preliminary  whole,  and  the  total  a  finished  whole. 
But  the  ability  to  construct  one  thing  out  of  many 
does-  not  come  by  nature.  It  implies  fecundity,  re- 
straint, an  eye  for  effects,  the  forecast  of  finish  while 
we  are  still  working  in  the  rough,  obedience  to  the 
demands  of  development,  and  a  deaf  ear  to  whatever 
calls  us  into  the  by-paths  of  caprice  ;  in  short  it  im- 
plies that  the  good  writer  is  to  be  an  artist. 

Now  something  of  this  large  requirement  which 
composition  makes,  the  young  writer  instinctively 
feels,  and  he  is  terrified.  He  knows  how  ill-fitted  he 
is  to  direct  "  toil  co-operant  to  an  end ; "  and  when 
he  sits  down  to  the  desk  and  sees  the  white  sheet  of 
paper  before  him,  he  shivers.  Let  him  know  that  the 
shiver  is  a  suitable  part  of  the  performance.  I  well 
remember  the  pleasure  with  which,  as  a  young  man,  I 
heard  my  venerable  and  practised  professor  of  rheto- 
ric say  that  he  supposed  there  was  no  work  known  to 
man  more  difficult  than  writing.  Up  to  that  time  I 
had  supposed  its  severities  peculiar  to  myself.  It 
cheered  me,  and  gave  me  courage  to  try  again,  to 
learn  that  I  had  all  mankind  for  my  fellow-sufferers. 
Where  this  is  not  understood,  writing  is  avoided. 
From  such  avoidance  I  would  save  the  young  writer 
by  my  precept  to  seek  every  opportunity  to  write. 
For  most  of  us  this  is  a  new  way  of  confronting  com- 
position —  treating  it  as  an  opportunity,  a  chance,  and 
not  as  a  burden  or  compulsion,  //sit  saves  from  slavish- 
ness  and  takes  away  the  drudgery  of  writing,  to  view 
each  piece  of  it  as  a  precious  and  necessary  step  in 
the  pathway  to  power.  To  those  engageji  in  bread- 
winning  employments  these  opportunities  will  be  j^ew. 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISU.  23 

Spring  forward  to  them,  then,  using  them  to  the  full. 
Severe  they  will  be  because  so  few,  for  only  practice 
breeds  ease ;  but  on  that  very  account  let  no  one  of 
them  pass  with  merely  a  second-best  performance. 
If  a  letter  is  to  be  written  to  a  friend,  a  report  to  an 
employer,  a  communication  to  a  newspaper,  see  that 
it  has  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  The  ma- 
jority of  writings  are  without  these  pleasing  adorn- 
ments. Only  the  great  pieces  possess  them.  Bear 
this  in  mind,  and  win  the  way  to  artistic  composition 
by  noticing  what  should  be  said  first,  what  second, 
and  what  third. 

I  cannot  leave  this  subject,  however,  without  con- 
gratulating the  present  generation  on  its  advantages 
over  mine.  Children  are  brought  up  to-day,  in  happy 
contrast  with  my  compeers,  to  feel  that  the  pencil  is 
no  instrument  of  torture,  hardly  indeed  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  tongue.  About  the  time  they  leave  their 
mother's  arms  they  take  their  pen  in  hand.  On  paper 
they  are  encouraged  to  describe  their  interesting  birds, 
friends,  adventures.  Their  written  lessons  are  almost 
as  frequent  as  their  oral,  and  they  learn  to  write  com- 
positions while  not  yet  quite  understanding  what  they 
are  about.  Some  of  these  fortunate  ones  will,  I  hope, 
find  the  language  I  have  sadly  used  about  the  diffi- 
culty of  writing  extravagant.  And  let  me  sslj,  too,  that 
since  frequency  has  more  to  do  with  ease  of  writing 
than  anything  else,  I  count  the  newspaper  men  lucky 
because  they  are  writing  all  the  time,  and  I  do  not 
think  so  meanly  of  their  product  as  the  present  popu- 
lar disparagement  would  seem  to  require.  It  is  hasty 
work  undoubtedly,  and  bears  the  marks  of  haste. 
But  in  my  judgment,  at  no  period  of  the  English  Ian- 


24  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

giiage  has  there  been  so  high  an  average  of  sensible, 
vivacious,  and  informing  sentences  written  as  appears 
in  our  daily  press.  ^^With  both  good  and  evil  results, 
the  distinction  between  book  literature  and  speech 
literature  is  breaking  down.  Everybody  is  writing, 
apparently  in  verse  and  prose  ;  and  if  the  higher 
graces  of  style  do  not  often  appear,  neither  on  the 
other  hand  do  the  ruder  awkwardnesses  and  obscuri- 
ties. A  certain  straightforward  English  is  becoming 
established.  A  whole  nation  is  learning  the  use  of 
its  mother  tongue.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is 
doubly  necessary  that  any  one  who  is  conscious  of 
feebleness  in  his  command  of  English  should  promptly 
and  earnestly  begin  the  cultivation  of  it. 

My  third  precept  shall  be,  "  Kemember  the  other 
person.  'l  have  been  urging  self-cultivation  in  Eng- 
lish as  if  it  concerned  one  person  alone,  ourself. 
But  every  utterance  really  concerns  two.  Its  aim 
is  social.  Its  object  is  communication;  and  while 
unquestionably  prompted  half-way  by  the  desire  to 
ease  our  mind  through  self-expression,  it  still  finds 
its  only  justification  in  the  advantage  somebody  else 
will  draw  from  what  is  said,  "^^peaking  or  writing 
is,  therefore,  everywhere  a  double-ended  process.  It 
springs  from  me,  it  penetrates  him ;  and  both  of  these 
ends  need  watching.  Is  what  I  say  precisely  what 
I  mean  ?  That  is  an  iinportaut  question .^i.  Is  what  I 
say  so  shaped  that  it  can  readily  be  assiiftilated  by 
him  who  hears  ?.  This  is  a  question  of  quite  as  great 
consequence,  and  much  more  likely  to  be  forgotten. 
We  are  so  full  of  ourselves  that  we  do  not  remember 
the  other  person.  Helter-skelter  we  pour  forth  our 
uuaimed  words  merely  for  our  personal  relief,  heed- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  25 

less  whether  they  heljj  or  hinder  Jiiiu  whom  they  still 
purport  to  address.  For  most  of  us  are  grievously 
lacking  in  imagination,  which  is  the  ability  to  go  out- 
side ourselves  and  take  on  the  conditions  of  another 
mind.  Yet  this  is  what  the  literary  artist  is  always 
doing.  He  has  at  once  the  ability  to  see  for  himself 
and  the  ability  to  see  himself  as  others  see  him.  He 
can  lead  two  lives  as  easily  as  one  life ;  or  rather,  he 
has  trained  himself  to  consider  that  other  life  as  of 
more  importance  than  his,  and  to  reckon  his  comfort, 
likings,  and  labors  as  quite  subordinated  to  the  ser- 
vice of  that  other.  All  serious  literary  work  contains 
within  it  this  readiness  to  bear  another's  burden.  I 
must  write  with  pains,  that  he  may  read  with  ease. 
I  must  \J 

find  out  men's  wants  and  wills, 
And  meet  them  there. 

As  I  write,'!  must  unceasingly  study  what  is  the  line 
of  least  intellectual  resistance  along  which  my  thought 
may  enter  the  differently  constituted  mind ;  and  to 
that  line  I  must  subtly  adjust,  without  enfeebling,  my 
meaning.  Will  this  combination  of  words  or  that 
make  the  meaning  clear  ?  Will  this  order  of  presen- 
tation facilitate  swiftness  of  apprehension,  or  will  it 
clog  the  movement  ?  What  temperamental  perversi- 
ties in  me  must  be  set  aside  in  order  to  render  my 
reader's  approach  to  what  I  would  tell  him  pleasant  ? 
What  temperamental  perversities  in  him  must  be  ac- 
cepted by  me  as  fixed  facts,  conditioning  all  I  say  ? 
These  are  the  questions  the  skilful  writer  is  always 
asking. 

And  these  questions  —  as  will  have  been  perceived 


26  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

already  —  are  moral  questions  no  less  than  literary. 
That  golden  rule  of  generous  service  by  which  we  do 
for  others  what  we  would  have  them  do  for  us,  is  a 
rule  of  writing  too.  Every  writer  who  knows  his 
trade  perceives  that  he  is  a  servant,  that  it  is  his 
business  to  endure  hardship  if  only  his  reader  may 
win  freedom  from  toil,  that  no  impediment  to  that 
reader's  understanding  is  too  slight  to  deserve  dili- 
gent attention,  that  he  has  consequently  no  right  to 
let  a  single  sentence  slip  from  him  unsocialized  —  I 
mean,  a  sentence  which  cannot  become  as  naturally 
another's  possession  as  his  own.  In  the  very  act  of 
asserting  himself,  he  lays  aside  what  is  distinctively 
his.  And  because  these  qualifications  of  the  writer 
are  moral  .qualifications,  they  can  never  be  com- 
pletely fulfilled  as  long  as  we  live  and  write.  We 
may  continually  approximate  them  more  nearly,  but 
there  will  still  always  be  possible  an  alluring  refine- 
ment of  exercise  beyond.  The  world  of  the  literary 
artist  and  the  moral  man  is  interesting  through  its 
inexhaustibility;  and  he  who  serves  his  fellows  by 
writing  or  by  speech  is  artist  and  moral  man  in  one. 
Writing  a  letter  is  a  simple  matter,  but  it  is  a  moral 
matter  and  an  artistic ;  for  it  may  be  done  either 
with  imagination  or  with  raw  self-centredness.  What 
things  will  my  correspondent  wish  to  know  ?  How 
can  I  transport  him  out  of  his  properly  alien  sur- 
roundings into  the  vivid  impressiotis  which  now  are 
mine  ?  How  can  I  tell  all  I  long  to  tell,  and  still  be 
sure  the  telling  will  be  for  him  as  lucid  and  delightful 
as  for  me  ?  Kemember  the  other  person,  I  say.  Do 
not  become  absorbed  in  yourself.  \Your  interests 
cover  only  the  half  of  any  piece  of  writing ;  the  other 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  27 

ban's  less  visible  half  is  necessary  to  complete  yours. 
And  if  I  have  here  discussed  writing  more  than  speech, 
that  is  merely  because  when  we  speak  we  utter  our 
first  thoughts,  but  when  we  write,  our  second,  —  or 
better  still,  our  fourth  ;  and  in  the  greater  deliberation 
which  writing  affords  I  have  felt  that  the  demands  of 
morality  and  art,  which  are  universally  imbedded  in 
language,  could  be  more  distinctly  perceived.  Yet 
none  the  less  truly  do  we  need  to  talk  for  the  other 
person  than  to  write  for  him. 

But  there  remains  a  fourth  weighty  precept,  and 
one  not  altogether  detachable  from  the  third.  It 
is  this  :  "  Lean  upon  your  subject."  We  have  seen 
how  the  user  of  language,  whether  in  writing  or  in 
speaking,  works  for  himself ;  how  he  works  for  an- 
other individual  too ;  but  there  is  one  more  for  whom 
his  work  is  performed,  one  of  greater  consequence 
than  any  person,  and  that  is  his  subject.  From  this 
comes  his  primary  call.  Those  who  in  their  utter- 
ance fix  their  thoughts  on  themselves,  or  on  other 
selves,  never  reach  power.  That  resides  in  the  sub- 
ject. There  we  must  dwell  with  it,  and  be  content 
to  have  no  other  strength  than  its.  When  the  fright- 
ened schoolboy  sits  down  to  write  about  Spring,  he 
cannot  imagine  where  the  thoughts  which  are  to  make 
up  his  piece  are  to  come  from.  He  cudgels  his  brain 
for  ideas.  He  examines  his  pen-point,  the  curtains, 
his  inkstand,  to  see  if  perhaps  ideas  may  not  be  had 
from  these.  He  wonders  what  his  teacher  will  wish 
him  to  say,  and  he  tries  to  recall  how  the  passage 
sounded  in  the  Third  Eeader.  In  every  direction  but 
one  he  turns,  and  that  is  the  direction  where  lies  the 
prime  mover  of  his  toil,  his  subject.     Of  that  he  is 


28  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

afraid.  Now,  wliat  I  want  to  make  evident  is  t"fc:At 
tliis  subject  is  not  in  reality  tlie  foe,  but  the  friend. 
It  is  his  only  helper.  His  composition  is  not  to  be, 
as  he  seems  to  suppose,  a  mass  of  his  laborious  inven> 
tions,  but  it  is  to  be  made  up  exclusively  of  what  the 
subject  dictates.  He  has  only  to  attend.  At  present 
he  stands  in  his  own  way,  making  such  a  din  with 
his  private  anxieties  that  he  cannot  hear  the  rich  sug- 
gestions of  the  subject.  He  is  bothered  with  consid- 
ering how  he  feels,  or  what  he  or  somebody  else  will 
like  to  see  on  his  paper.  This  is  debilitating  busi- 
ness. He  must  lean  on  his  subject,  if  he  would  have 
his  writing  strong,  and  busy  himself  with  what  it 
says,  rather  than,  with  what  he  would  say.  Matthew 
Arnold,  in  the  important  preface  to  his  poems  of  1856, 
contrasting  the  artistic  methods  of  Greek  poetry  and 
modern  poetry,  sums  up  the  teaching  of  the  Greeks 
in  these  words:  "All  depends  upon  the  subject;! 
choose  a  fitting  action,  penetrate  yourself  with  the! 
feeling  of  its  situations  ;  this  done,  everything  else/ 
will  follow."  And  he  calls  attention  to  the  self-as- 
sertive and  scatter-brained  habits  of  our  time.  "  How 
different  a  way  of  thinking  from  this  is  ours !  We 
can  hardly  at  the  present  day  understand  what  Me- 
nander  meant,  when  he  told  a  man  who  inquired  as 
to  the  progress  of  his  comedy  that  he  had  finished  it, 
not  having  yet  written  a  single  line,  because  he  had 
constructed  the  action  of  it  in  his  mind.  A  modern 
critic  would  have  assured  him  tliat  the  merit  of  his 
piece  depended  on  the  brilliant  things  which  arose 
under  his  pen  as  he  went  along.  I  verily  think  that 
the  majority  of  us  do  not  in  our  hearts  believe  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  .a  total-impression  to  be  dc 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  29 

rived  from  a  poem,  or  to  be  demanded  from  a  poet. 
We  permit  the  poet  to  select  any  action  he  pleases, 
and  to  suffer  that  action  to  go  as  it  will,  provided 
he  gratifies  us  Avith  occasional  bursts  of  fine  writing, 
and  with  a  shower  of  isolated  thoughts  and  images." 
Great  writers  put  themselves  and  their  personal  im- 
jlginings  out  of  sight.  CXJaeir  writing  becomes  a  kind 
If  transparent  window  on  which  reality  is  reflected, 
[nd  through  which  people  see,  not  them,  but  that  of 
rhich  they  write. ^  How  much  we  know  of  Shake- 
speare's characters  !  How  little  of  Shakespeare  !  Of 
him  that  might  almost  be  said  which  Isaiah  said  of 
God,  "  He  hideth  himself."  ^The  best  writer  is  the 
best  mental  listener,  the  one  who  peers  farthest  into 
his  matter  and  most  fully  heeds  its  behests.  Pre- 
eminently obedient  is  the  strong  writer,  —  refinedly, 
energetically  obedient.  I  once  spent  a  day  with  a 
great  novelist  when  the  book  which  subsequently 
proved  his  masterpiece  was  only  half  written.  I 
praised  his  mighty  hero,  but  said  I  should  think  the 
life  of  an  author  would  be  miserable  who,  having  cre- 
ated a  character  so  huge,  now  had  him  in  hand  and 
must  find  something  for  him  to  do.  My  friend  seemed 
puzzled  by  my  remark,  but  after  a  moment's  pause 
said,  "  I  don't  think  you  know  how  we  work.  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  character.  Now  that  he  is 
created,  he  Avill  act  as  he  will." 

And  such  docility  must  be  cultivated  by  every  one 
who  would  write  well,  such  strenuous  docility.  Of 
course  there  must  be  energy  in  plenty ;  the  imagina- 
tion which  I  described  in  my  third  section,  the  pas- 
sion for  solid  form  as  in  my  second,  the  disciplined 
and  daring  powers  as  in  my  first;  but  all  these  must 


30  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

be  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  move  where  the 
matter  calls  and  to  acknowledge  that  all  their  worth 
is  to  be  drawn  from  it.  Religion  is  only  enlarged 
good  sense,  and  the  words  of  Jesus  apply  as  well  to 
the  things  of  earth  as  of  heaven.  I  do  not  know 
where  we  could  find  a  more  compendious  statement  of 
what  is  most  important  for  one  to  learn  who  would 
cultivate  himself  in  English  than  the  simple  saying 
in  which  Jesus  announces  the  source  of  his  power. 
"  I  speak  not  mine  own  words,  but  the  words  of  him 
who  sent  me,"  Whoever  can  do  that,  will  be  a  noble 
speaker  indeed. 

These,  then,  are  the  fundamental  precepts  which 
every  one  must  heed  who  would  command  our  beauti- 
ful English  language.  There  is,  of  course,  a  fifth.  I 
hardly  need  to  name  it ;  for  it  always  follows  after, 
whatever  others  precede.  It  is  that  we  should  do  the 
work,  and  not  think  about  it ;  do  it  day  after  day' and 
not  grow  weary  in  bad  doing.  Early  and  often  we 
must  be  busy,  and  be  satisfied  to  have  a  great  deal  of 
labor  produce  but  a  small  result.  I  am  told  that 
early  in  life  John  Morley,  wishing  to  engage  in  jour- 
nalism, wrote  an  editorial  and  sent  it  to  a  paper  every 
day  for  nearly  a  year  before  he  succeeded  in  getting 
one  accepted.  We  all  know  what  a  power  he  became 
in  London  journalism.  I  will  not  vouch  for  the  truth 
of  this  story,  but  I  am  sure  a,n  ambitious  author  is 
wise  who  writes  a  weekly  essay  for  his  stove.  Publi- 
cation is  of  little  consequence,  so  long  as  one  is  getting 
one's  self  hammered  into  shape. 

But  before  I  close  this  address,  let  me  acknowledge 
that  in  it  I  have  neglected  a  whole  class  of  helpful 
influences,  probably  quite  as  important  as  any  I  have 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  31 

discussed.  Purposely  I  have  passed  them  by.  Be- 
cause I  wished  to  show  what  we  can  do  for  ourselves, 
I  have  everywhere  assumed  that  our  cultivation  in 
English  is  to  be  effected  by  naked  volition  and  a  kindl 
of  dead  lift.  These  are  mighty  agencies,  but  seldom  in  I 
this  interlocked  world  do  they  work  well  alone.  They 
are  strongest  when  backed  by  social  suggestion  and 
unconscious  custom.  Ordinarily  the  good  speaker  is 
he  who  keeps  good  company,  but  increases  the  helpful 
influence  of  that  company  by  constant  watchfulness 
along  the  lines  I  have  marked  out.  So  supplemented, 
my  teaching  is  true.  By  itself  it  is  not  true.  It 
needs  the  supplementation  of  others.  •  Let  him  who 
would  speak  or  write  well  seek  out  good  speakers 
and  writers,  t-  Let  him  live  in  their  society,  —  for  the 
society  of  the  greatest  writers  is  open  to  the  most 
secluded  —  let  him  feel  the  ease  of  their  excellence, 
the  ingenuity,  grace,  and  scope  of  their  diction,  and  he 
will  soon  find  in  himself  capacities  whose  development 
may  be  aided  by  the  precepts  I  have  given.  Most  of 
us  catch  better  than  we  learn.  We  take  up  uncon- 
sciously from  our  surroundings  what  we  cannot  alto- 
gether create.  All  this  should  be  remembered,  and 
we  should  keep  ourselves  exposed  to  the  wholesome 
words  of  our  fellow-men.  Yet  our  own  exertions  will 
not  on  that  account  be  rendered  less  important.  We 
may  largely  choose  the  influences  to  which  we  submit ; 
we  may  exercise  a  selective  attention  among  these  in- 
fluences; we  may  enjoy,  oppose,  modify,  or  diligently 
ingraft  what  is  conveyed  to  us,  —  and  for  doing  any 
one  of  these  things  rationally  we  must  be  guided  by 
some  clear  aim.  Such  aims,  altogether  essential  even 
if  subsidiary,  I  have  sought  to  supply ;  and  I  would 


32  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH. 

reiterate  that  he  who  holds  them  fast  may  become 
supeiior  to  linguistic  fortune  and  be  the  wise  director 
of  his  slu_ggisli  and  obstinate  tongue.  It  is  as  certain 
las  anything  can  be  that  faithful  endeavor  will  bring 
lexpertness  in  the  use  of  English.  If  we  are  watchful 
of  our  speech,  making  our  words  continually  more 
minutely  true,  free,  and  resourceful ;  if  we  look  upon 
our  occasions  of  writing  as  opportunities  for  the  de- 
liberate work  of  unified  construction  ;  if  in  all  our 
utterances  we  think  of  him  Avho  hears  as  well  as  of 
him  who  sj)eaks ;  and  above  all,  if  we  fix  the  attention 
of  ourselves  and  our  hearers  on  the  matter  we  talk 
about  and  so  let  ourselves  be  supported  by  our  subject, 
—  we  shall  make  a  daily  advance  not  only  in  Eng- 
lish study,  but  in  personal  power,  in  general  service- 
ableness,  and  in  consequent  delight. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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